Winter's Final Punch? Forecasters Say Maybe

Tired of winter? It could be the season's last gasp or just wishful thinking: an area ranging all the way from Texas to the Mid-Atlantic was under a weather alert, with as much as 10 inches of new snow possible in the northern reaches.

The Weather Channel says:

"All told, roughly 83 million people were under some kind of warning or advisory for winter weather.

"Parts of western Kentucky had already tallied near 20 inches of snow from Thor, so far.

"In addition to the wintry weather, heavy rain has caused some flooding from portions of Kentucky into West Virginia and southwest Pennsylvania. Precipitation has now turned to snow in these areas, but river levels will remain high for the next day or so."

In the nation's capital, the threat of the "wintry mix" that finally materialized Thursday morning shut down government offices and kept cars off the road. The Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang predicts accumulation of 4 to 7 inches in the southern part of the District of Colombia and 5 to 10 inches in the north.

Armando Trull, reporting for member station WAMU in D.C., says: "Pretty much every local jurisdiction here is closed. So are the schools and the federal government. And, as far as mass transit — everything is operating on a limited schedule."

As The Associated Press notes: "Temperatures also have been dropping, drastically in the South. Places like Nashville and Louisville, Kentucky could drop into the single digits. A sheet of ice coated roads last night in Memphis."

According to The National Weather Service, the front "will move southeastward to the Southern tip of Florida by Friday evening. Cold high pressure over the Upper Midwest to Southern High Plains will move eastward to the Mid-Atlantic to the Lower Mississippi Valley."